Sapphire Skies

by Belinda Alexandra

  ‘Hey, Lily! Daydreaming again?’ It was Richard, the marketing assistant. He handed her a copy of the Moscow Times. ‘The ad for the special rates is on page three.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Lily, taking the newspaper from him. Had she been cocky like that with her first boss? She doubted it. As far as she remembered, she’d never even referred to her supervisor at McClements Advertising by his first name.

  She opened the newspaper to look at the ad they’d taken out for the hotel. Her gaze drifted to the article next to it: Pilot’s Plane Found after Fifty-Seven Years but the Mystery Remains. Accompanying the article was a black-and-white photograph of a pretty fair-haired woman in a military uniform. Lily was pleased. Attractive people drew the readers’ attention to a page.

  ‘Bloody traffic! I thought everyone was supposed to be on holidays!’

  Lily looked up to see Colin, the publicity manager, hanging his jacket on the back of his chair at the desk opposite her.

  ‘Hey, Colin!’ called Scott from his office. ‘The demands of life awaken the giant within me!’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Colin, sending Scott a wave but not replying with his own affirmation. He sat down at his desk and muttered to Lily, ‘The demands of life bloody piss me off!’

  Colin’s dry humour was a lifesaver to Lily. Despite her aching heart, she smiled into the newspaper.

  THREE

  Moscow Times, 4 August 2000

  PILOT’S PLANE FOUND AFTER 57 YEARS

  BUT THE MYSTERY REMAINS

  The Defence Ministry confirmed today that a Yak fighter plane recovered in a forest in Orël Oblast last week is that of missing air ace Natalya Stepanovna Azarova.

  The find comes after years of controversy over the Great Patriotic War heroine’s disappearance while on a mission in July 1943. Supporters of Azarova argue that because of her ace status she deserves to be posthumously awarded the distinction of Hero of the Russian Federation. However, while Friday’s find has shed some light on the mystery of Azarova’s fate, many more questions remain unanswered. No body and no parachute were found in the wreckage, lending fuel to the claim that Azarova was a German spy whose cover had been blown and who faked her death in order to avoid arrest. Many sightings of Azarova in Paris and Berlin have been reported over the years, although none has been confirmed.

  General Valentin Orlov, one of the founders of the Soviet Union Cosmonaut Program and Azarova’s squadron leader when she fought in his fighter aviation regiment, has long refuted the claim that Azarova was a spy. Since the war he has searched tirelessly for Azarova’s crash site, and in 1962 was joined in his quest by airplane archaeologist Ilya Kondakov.

  General Orlov, who has suffered ill health in recent years, declined to make a statement after last week’s discovery. He said he would only do so after the wreckage had been properly examined by the Ministry of Defence and the forest thoroughly searched.

  Klavdiya Shevereva, who runs a small museum of Azarova memorabilia in Moscow, vows that the fight to prove Azarova’s innocence will continue.

  Orlov sank down on the velour couch of his Presnensky district apartment and lined up his medications on the coffee table. His doctor had told him to take the tablets after meals and with plenty of water. Orlov hadn’t thought to ask if the procedure could be followed by a shot of vodka, but he poured himself one anyway. Finding Natasha’s plane after all these years had brought on a tightness in his chest that had nothing to do with his age or his state of health.

  Taking a nip of the burning liquid, Orlov cast his eye about the apartment. He stared at the red wallpaper, the teak side tables and the amber-tinted glass that separated the living room from the kitchen. He had not changed anything since his wife, Yelena, had passed away from a stroke ten years earlier. It was Yelena who had decorated the apartment; Orlov had been too busy with his work at the space centre to pay attention to domestic life. Homes were the creations of women; even though the women in his life had a habit of not staying around as long as he would have liked. He had been only five years old when his mother died.

  The sky outside the window darkened and Orlov watched it for a while, wondering if another thunderstorm was on the way. His mind drifted to Leonid. His son’s wife, Irina, had asked Orlov to come and live with them. She was concerned about him being alone when his health was failing. Orlov had refused. What good would an old man be to Leonid and his family? If he was a woman, that would be different. He could mend clothes, prepare meals, help with the shopping. But an old man with nothing but memories would be a burden.

  Orlov had often wished that he could be one of those people who gave themselves freely to their loved ones, whose presence lit up a room. But a lifetime of secrets and guarding his thoughts had made him too introspective. Yelena had understood and accepted that about him. Even Leonid didn’t seem to bear any grudge about having an emotionally distant father. Only Natasha had been able to open up that side of him. Natasha …

  Orlov stood and walked to the sideboard. He took out the copy of Doctor Zhivago from the drawer and opened it to the page where he kept the photograph hidden. It had been taken in 1943 and showed him and Natasha standing by his fighter plane. They were looking at the camera but in front of them was a map spread out on the plane’s wing. They were both smiling. For a moment, Orlov was startled to think that the handsome young man with dark hair and chiselled features was once him. It was during the battle for Kursk and the tension of flying several sorties a day had made them war weary. Yet in the photograph he and Natasha looked radiantly happy.

  ‘The absurdity of youth and being in love,’ he mumbled.

  Ilya Kondakov had told him that now they had recovered the plane, the next step was to search the forest for Natasha’s body. He was drawing plans for how far she might have drifted with her parachute. It wasn’t considered chivalrous to shoot a pilot in their parachute; their downed plane was enough of a victory. But the Great Patriotic War had been a bloody battle with atrocities committed by both sides. The other possibility was that Natasha’s parachute had been damaged when she exited the plane and hadn’t opened for her. Orlov didn’t like to think about that too much.

  He returned to the couch and poured himself another glass of vodka. When Natasha went missing, he’d fantasised that she had bumped her head and suffered amnesia. In his daydreams she was safe and well, living among some peasants. All he had to do was find her. He did not accept that she could have survived the crash and not come back to him. Every morning he had woken up wondering if this would be the day that she returned. After years of waiting with no sign of her, Orlov had gradually accepted that he had to make peace with the unresolved and get on with his life. But it hadn’t stopped him searching.

  As the vodka put fire in his veins, he thought about the events of that last day he had seen her. Their regiment had been deployed to Orël Oblast, where German forces were concentrating for a planned offensive. The weather was unbearably hot, so instead of sitting in their cockpits, the pilots had been waiting in a hut. They had expected the Germans to start their attack in the morning but there was no sign of the enemy so far. Alisa, another female fighter pilot in the regiment, was sleeping. Filipp was reading a book but didn’t appear to be turning the pages. These two, along with Natasha and Orlov, were the pilots who had survived since the battle of Stalingrad. The other pilots were new. Some people said that the longer you flew the more likely you were to survive, but others said the opposite.

  While waiting for the call to scramble, Orlov and Natasha would usually remain silent, each focusing on the task ahead of them. Occasionally, when it seemed unlikely they would be called on to fly they would dare to look to the future. How many children they would have, what they would do for work, how they would spend their summers. Natasha told him that the war had destroyed her love of flying, and after it was over she wanted nothing more than to be a good wife and give piano lessons to children. Orlov remembered studying his lover’s face that afternoon and the frown lines be
tween her eyes. She had balled her hands into fists as if trying to restrain herself. She normally had a way of putting death out of her mind. ‘It’s no use mourning the fallen,’ she used to say. ‘I have to keep my head so I can fight for the living.’

  The knowledge that the Luftwaffe was preparing for a massive air attack to halt the Soviet advance was sobering enough, but Orlov sensed that the peculiar tension in Natasha’s manner had another source. Perhaps it was because their beloved regimental commander had been killed a few days before. Natasha often said her worst nightmare was to go down in flames. Was it the death of Colonel Smirnov that was bothering her?

  Her edginess worried Orlov, but when he suggested substituting another pilot for her she wouldn’t hear of it. She had forced a smile and attempted to lighten the mood by telling him about the time she had met Stalin. ‘I thought it was the most exciting day of my life. I was fourteen years old.’

  From the moment Natasha had come into his life, she had been a dazzling light to Orlov, all paradox and enticing mystery, a tough fighter pilot one moment and at other times as innocent as a child. Although he had never liked her veneration of Stalin, he had learned to tolerate it. But he had to tell her the truth and this might be his last opportunity.

  ‘Listen, Natasha, there is something you should know,’ he said.

  When the ingenuous expression on Natasha’s face had crumpled, it was as if he had taken a favourite doll from a child and trampled it into the dirt. But before he had any chance to explain himself further the alarm had sounded. German bombers had been spotted and they had to scramble for their planes. That was the last time he had spoken to her.

  Sometimes Orlov wondered if what he had said that afternoon had caused her to go over to the other side, to assist the Germans. But he found that impossible to believe. Natasha was intensely loyal. She would not have betrayed her friends. Perhaps instead what he had revealed had destroyed the things that made her a great fighter pilot — her determination, her passion and her concentration. Maybe she had panicked and made a fatal error.

  Orlov had never lost a wingman in battle until then; when he did it was his precious Natasha.

  He covered his face with his hands and he wept. His shoulders shook and his chest heaved as tears poured from his eyes. Those events had taken place over half a century ago, but it was as if she’d vanished only yesterday.

  FOUR

  Moscow, 1937

  I met Stalin once. I thought it was the most exciting day of my life. I was fourteen years old.

  ‘Natasha, we are here!’ cried my father, when the official car we were travelling in passed St Basil’s Cathedral and approached the Spassky Gate.

  I stared out the window at the red walls and towers of the Kremlin. I had seen the outer fortress of the ancient city many times but this was the first time I had ever been inside. I squeezed Papa’s hand as the car passed under the archway and I caught a glimpse of the secret gardens. The golden domes of the cathedrals sparkled in the fading autumn light. The Ivan the Great Bell Tower dominated all the other buildings. It was said to mark the centre of Moscow. People no longer worshipped at Assumption Cathedral and the Cathedral of the Archangel, but something of the grandeur of imperial coronations and funerals of the past remained in the atmosphere. A thrill ran through me when I imagined ladies dressed in velvet and bedecked in jewels watching soldiers on parade. But I caught myself. Of course life was much better for us now that Comrade Stalin was in charge. The Tsar Nicholas and his predecessors had done nothing for the Russian people except exploit them.

  The car stopped outside the Grand Kremlin Palace and the driver opened the door for us.

  ‘Come on, don’t dawdle,’ teased Papa, reaching out his hand to help me from the car.

  ‘So this is where Comrade Stalin lives?’ I whispered.

  ‘Not quite, Natasha,’ my father replied, grinning. ‘I believe his rooms are in the Amusement Palace.’

  My grandfather had been the official confectioner to the Imperial House and Papa had been to the Grand Kremlin Palace many times with him. After the Revolution, when Lenin was in power, my family became ‘class enemies’, and none of us had been inside the Kremlin since. Now Stalin was in charge, things had changed again. Papa and I were there as guests to a gala dinner in honour of the aviator Valery Chkalov and his crew for having performed the first non-stop transpolar flight to America.

  I smoothed down my silk dress, made by my mother especially for the occasion, and followed my father to join other guests waiting at the entrance. I recognised some of their faces from the pages of Pravda: there were famous chess players, footballers, dancers from the Bolshoi Ballet, as well as celebrated workers and peasants. I spied Olga Penkina, a milkmaid who had received the Order of Lenin for overfulfilling her farm’s production norm.

  ‘Do you think Marina Raskova will be here as well?’ I asked my father.

  The wall above my bed was covered with pictures of famous aviators, and Raskova had pride of place next to my portrait of Stalin. Whenever a pilot broke a record, I’d go with my family to join the crowds cheering them as they were paraded down Tverskaya Street. That was why my mother had forgone her place at the dinner so that I could accompany my father.

  ‘I wouldn’t let you miss out on this, Natasha. Not for anything,’ she’d said.

  My father nudged me. ‘There’s someone you’ll be interested to see.’

  I turned to where he was looking and spotted Anatoly Serov alighting from a car. The dashing fighter pilot was a hero of the Spanish Civil War. I was even more excited when I saw he had brought his actress wife, Valentina, with him. She was so beautiful. I had tried to copy her look by pouring lemon juice through my blonde hair and sitting in the sunshine, but I had never been able to achieve Valentina’s shade of platinum. A guard appeared and invited us into the palace. We ascended the staircase to St George Hall an unruly group. The peasants stepped timidly on the red carpet, getting in the way of ballerinas who pranced behind them. The footballers spoke loudly, while the factory workers ogled the bronze wall lamps. My father and I followed behind Serov and his wife. How elegantly Valentina moved! There was something feline about her. I watched her every step of the way and tried to imitate her stalking gait.

  At the end of the staircase, we were ushered into the reception hall, where we uttered a collective sigh. The snow-white walls, lit by chandeliers, were dazzling, and the pattern on the parquet floor was of such an intricate design that for a moment I thought it was a magnificent carpet. At the far end of the hall, under a vaulted ceiling, tables were arranged in banquet style, with a head table and several oval-shaped ones placed around a dance floor. A chamber orchestra played Tchaikovksy’s ‘Nocturne in D Minor’. I was surprised when the head waiter led my father and me to one of the front tables.

  When we were all seated, one of the guards marched to the double doors and announced that Comrade Stalin had arrived. We rose to our feet. I noticed the worker opposite my father and me wiping his trembling hands on his thighs.

  ‘Don’t get excited,’ my mother had cautioned me about meeting Stalin. ‘Let him do the talking, and don’t express your opinions … on anything.’

  Stalin entered the hall accompanied by three uniformed guards. He wore a grey marshal’s uniform and his hair was brushed back from his forehead. He moved slowly and deliberately, meeting the eye of anyone who was bold enough to look into his face. I lowered my gaze when he looked in our direction. Stalin emanated authority, although he was shorter and older looking than he appeared in his portraits. He was followed in by the heroes Valery Chkalov, his co-pilot Georgy Baidukov and navigator Alexander Belyakov, and several commissars. They took their places and Vyacheslav Molotov, the chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, welcomed us and proposed a toast to ‘our great leader and teacher of all peoples’. Then he toasted Chkalov and his crew as ‘knights of culture and progress’.

  The meal began. The feast set out before us included Olivier and
beetroot salads, caviar and pickled vegetables for starters, followed by mushroom soup and fish. What impressed me most wasn’t the variety and abundance of the food, or the champagne and fine wines served in crystal glasses, but the quality of the bread. The rolls were so soft and sweet that they dissolved in my mouth; they didn’t need butter or oil to make them palatable. I had never tasted bread like it. Our family was spared the queues for bread rations because my father’s position meant that we received special parcels of items that weren’t always available in the stores. Even then the bread was often hard and bitter. The shortage of bread, I had discerned from whispered conversations around me, had something to do with the peasants in the countryside — with their farms being turned into collectives. When I’d asked my mother about it, I’d received the mysterious reply: ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.’

  After the main course of chicken cutlets and vegetable pie, our leader rose to give a speech about aviation and its importance to the Soviet Union.

  ‘Vast expanses of our great country are still not linked by roads and railways,’ he thundered. ‘Air travel is the most promising solution to this problem. The Motherland needs courageous and determined pilots with this vision.’

  He spoke like he moved: unhurriedly and with intention. Each word penetrated my consciousness. But he didn’t need to convince me. I already had ambitions of learning to fly like my brother, Alexander, who was a cadet in the air force. I’d learned from my instruction that women in the Soviet Union were the equals of men, unlike women in the West. Even those from poor families could go to university to study science or engineering, or rise to become factory managers.

  Valery Chkalov stood up to speak next. Although I had read every thrilling detail about his transpolar flight in Pravda, it was exciting to hear the story from the man who had lived it. I hung on each word while Chkalov described how the plane’s compass had become inoperable as the crew neared the polar region, and how from then on Belyakov had to rely on dead reckoning and a solar heading indicator as his guides. I gasped along with everyone else when Chkalov explained how headwinds and storms caused the fuel to be consumed faster than anticipated and depleted the crew’s limited oxygen supplies. Then he related how General George C Marshall was there to greet them on their arrival in America and went on to describe the cheering crowds who turned out as they were paraded through New York City. I imagined each scene as if it was I who had experienced it. I saw myself waving to the adoring crowds from the open-topped car, attired like Valentina Serova in a dress with shoulder pads and high-heeled pumps. My platinum-blonde hair glistening in the sun as President Roosevelt shook my hand and the press cameramen rushed forward to take my picture. I was lost in the glory of my celebrity when Papa nudged me. Chkalov had proposed a toast.